2. 1
What is America? European misconceptions with regard to the Americas can be traced to
the very beginning of transoceanic contact in 1492.1 From Columbus to the Spaghetti Westerns
of the 20th century, Europeans have taken America, their “West,” and manipulated and sculpted
it.2 A plethora of contradictory voices have contributed to the construction of a complicated and
paradoxical Western myth.3 Each voice has offered a different vision of the West. The versions
are grounded in a shared Western setting, but the stories are dramatically different, even foreign.
Such trans-national perceptions of the American West have attracted the attention of several
contemporary scholars.4 Among the influential European voices is the peculiar voice of a
German novelist who conjured a vision of the American West without ever experiencing it. His
portrayal, around which he carefully constructed an aura of factuality, powerfully shaped
German perceptions the American West.5 May’s Amerika, constructed from the 1870s to the
1890s, was as much a reflection of his native Germany as of the land he portrayed and was
greeted by enthusiasm by an audience whose appetite had been whetted by previous exposure to
the Wild West. In May’s twenty novels set in America, he bolstered an already prevalent
German fascination with the American West by constructing his own Wild West in which late
1 David Wilton, Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 164.
2 Gerald D. Nash, “European Image of America: The West in Historical Perspective,” Montana:The
Magazine of Western History 42, no. 2 (1992): 7.
3 Ray Billington’s influential book on European opinions of America argues that the myth of America is
really a dual myth, a myth of “promise” and of “savagery.” Ray Allen Billington, Land of Savagery,Land of
Promise (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 78.
4 See Renee M. Laegreid, “Finding the American West in Twenty-first-century Italy,” The Western
Historical Quarterly 45, no. 4 (2014): 411-428; Margaret Connell-Szasz, “A’ Ghàidhealtachd and the North
American West,” The Western Historical Quarterly 46, no. 1 (2015): 5-29; David Wrobel, “Considering Frontiers
and Empires: George Kennan’s Siberia and the U.S. West,” The Western Historical Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2015): 285-
309.
5 Julian Crandall Hollick, “The American West in the European Imagination,” Montana:The Magazine of
Western History 42, no. 2 (1992): 18; Heribert Frhr. V. Feilitzsch, “Karl May: The ‘West’ as seen in Germany,”
Journal of PopularCulture 27, no. 3 (1993): 174.
3. 2
19th-century Germans could reencounter their own perceived past of noble savagery while
simultaneously exhibiting their legitimacy as a young world power.6
Though May greatly enhanced and disseminated the myth of the Wild West in Germany,
he didn’t singlehandedly invent it; he built upon a rich tradition of epistolary and travel literature,
which had created an already enchanted audience hungry for his novels. America, with its
foreign Western frontier, had proven to be incredibly magnetic to the Germans decades before
May’s work. Gottfried Duden’s Bericht über eine Reise nach den westlichen Staaten
Nordamerikas (Report about a Journey to the Western States of North America) was one of the
most widely read books in Germany following its publication in 1829, and in 1854 alone,
215,009 Germans bid farewell to Europe and ventured to America.7
The massive German outmigration resulted in a rich international correspondence—
letters sent from German immigrants back to their families in Europe are called the “American
Letters”—which exaggerated the country’s risks and pitfalls as well as the rich abundance of
opportunities.8 In February 1881, German immigrant Franz Josef Loewen, then living in
Michigan, wrote to his family in Germany: “America wouldn’t know what to do with all its food
if it didn’t find a willing customer in ever-starving Europe, and that is why it is understandable
that so many are tired of Europe, tie up their bundles and set off for the shores of America.”9
6 May’s novels have been translated into several languages,but his readership has remained primarily
German-speaking. Heribert Frhr. V. Feilitzsch, “Karl May: The ‘West’ as seen in Germany,” 173 and 186; May’s
works have attracted the attention of numerous German scholars.American academics, however, have not dealt
extensively with the author. The preeminent scholar of May in America, Richard Cracroft, wrote an unpublished
analysis of the author for his Master’s Thesis at the University of Utah. He later published an article summarizing
his thesis.Richard H. Cracroft, “The American West of Karl May.” American Quarterly 19, no. 2 (1967).
7 Nash, “European Image of America,” 10; Between 1815 and 1914, 5.5 million immigrated to the United
States. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States:Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington,
DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971), 105-106.
8 Walter D. Kampfhoefner, Wolfgang Helbich, and Ulrike Sommer, eds., News from the Land of Freedom:
German Immigrants Write Home, trans. Susan Carter Vogel (New York: Cornell University Press, 1991), 13.
9 Franz Joseph Loewen to his brother-in-law, sister-in-law, brothers,and sisters,24 February 1881, in
Kampfhoefner, Helbich and Sommer, News from the Land of Freedom, 195.
4. 3
Compared to heavily industrialized Germany, America, specifically the American West, offered
a precious commodity that was rare in Europe, land. Western lands meant abundance.
Consequently, Germans were drawn to the West; however, they were simultaneously repelled by
it, because just as the West’s opportunities were great, so were its risks.10 One such risk
articulated in several of the “America Letters” was violent conflict with Native Americans. In an
1838 letter from Carl Blümner to his mother in Germany, he wrote, “We thought we could do
good business; but our expectations were dashed. . . . The reason for this change is the Indians;
they rob the Spaniards incessantly . . . and kill [them] wherever they can.”11 The “America
Letters” portrayed the natives as “savage” and violent; yet, in spite of accounts of dangerous
contact, the Germans seemed to simultaneously develop a fascination with and an abhorrence of
the savagery of the American frontier.
Perhaps it was the potential danger that prevented more Germans from moving to
America, but the danger certainly didn’t stop them from reading and fantasizing about America
and her Wild West. Germany’s obsession with everything Indian and Western during the 19th
century is evidenced in various Western exhibitions and shows which generated enthusiastic
public responses.12 Fearing the loss of Indian culture, American George Catlin traveled up the
Mississippi River in 1832 painting Native Americans in order to preserve what he deemed to be
a culture on its way to decimation. His paintings toured Europe and began a pattern of traveling
Indian exhibitions which was followed by other artists like Swiss painter Karl Bodmer in the
10 As Ray Allen Billington monumentally noted in his 1985 Land of Savagery, Land of Promise, a
paradoxical European myth developed around the American West. Billington, Land of Savagery,Land of Promise,
78.
11 Carl Blümner to his mother, 3 April 1838, in Kampfhoefner, Helbich and Sommer, News from the Land
of Freedom, 102.
12 Louis S. Warren, Buffalo Bills America: William Cody and the Wild West Show (New York: Vintage
Books, 2005), 353-354.
5. 4
1840s.13 Catlin portrayed his indigenous subjects as noble and proud. One of his most famous
Indian portraits which made its way to Europe is of a starkly proud and muscular Blackfoot chief
named Buffalo Bull’s Back Fat.14 The bottom of the chief’s face is painted with blood-like war
paint, and he defiantly stares at the observer. He looks regal, holding a painted scepter-like stick
in his hand and crowned with a feather headdress. One could easily wipe away the war paint,
replace the headdress with a crown and the stick with a golden scepter and see a European
monarch. Catlin’s portraits were tremendously popular in Germany, and, though Catlin’s
European tour predates May, it is not unrealistic to assume that the impact they had upon
German popular culture indirectly influenced May’s perception and eventual portrayal of Native
Americans.15
As several scholars have noted, the Germans were drawn to the Indians.16 In a way, the
frontier reversed the effects of time by placing what Germans perceived to be the equivalent of
their own primitive past in the contemporary time period.17 Before and after Karl May, the
Germans were able to deemphasize the foreignness of Native Americans and see a reflection of
what they deemed to be their own origins within a nature-bound society of savagery. Nineteenth-
century Germans felt that their connection to their simplistic, Teutonic, noble past of bravery,
13 Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 353.
14 George Catlin, Stu-mick-o-súcks,Buffalo Bull's Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe, 1832, Smithsonian
American Art Museum, Washington,DC.
15 Warren, Buffalo Bill’s America, 353.
16 See Hollick, “The American West”; Peter Bolz, “Indians and Germans: A Relationship Riddled with
Clichés,” in Native American Art: The collections of the Ethnological MuseumBerlin, ed. Peter Bolz and Hans-
Ulrich Sanner (Seattle: University of Washington Press,1999), 9-21; Cracroft, “The American West of Karl May,”
249-258.; Billington, Land of Savagery,Land of Promise.
17 Reusch notes,“A variety of . . . domestic and foreign sources equated ancient Germans with the native
tribes of the Americas, as demonstrated by Montesquieu’s conviction that the American savages represented the
drive for freedom and courage of the Germanic tribes.” Johann J. K. Reusch, “Germans as Noble Savages and
Castaways: Alter Egos and Alterity in German Collective Consciousness during the Long Eighteenth Century,” The
John HopkinsUniversity Press 42, no. 1 (2008): 93.
6. 5
honor, loyalty, and strength was being lost amid the swell of industrialization.18 In a romantic
attempt to recall their simplistic past, artists like Casper David Friedrich depicted breath-taking
views of the German landscape, which was portrayed as sacrosanct.19 Germany’s romantic
obsession with nature reflects a yearning for a nature-imbued past, a past of noble barbarism
unscathed by Roman civilization. Germans connected with Native Americans as they saw a
nature-bound culture similar to the one from which they believed they had originated. This
relationship was encouraged through the oversimplification of German heritage, in typical
nationalist style, as well as the oversimplification of the representation of native cultures.
As noted, the Wild West had cemented itself in German popular opinion through
widespread exposure in the form of Duden’s exposé, immigrants’ letters, and touring art
exhibitions long before May’s novels appeared; however, it was May who made the Wild West,
or at least what he portrayed to be the Wild West, into a German commonality. As Gerald Nash,
a prominent American historian born in Germany, noted if you ask any German who a famous
American is they will more likely tell you Winnetou or Old Shatterhand, two of May’s most
beloved characters, than rattling off the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.20
May’s portrayal of the West looms larger than life in the German collective consciousness and
has exercised a greater influence on Germans’ perceptions of the Wild West than all other
contributors to the Western myth for three simple reasons. First, his books were outrageously
popular. Second, May created an aura of factuality around his purely fictional works. Not only
were Germans devouring May’s books in droves, some, at least initially, were being conned into
18 Reusch, “Germans as Noble Savages and Castaways,” 113; Such Teutonic values are evident in German
texts like Der Heliand, a violent, Germanized version of the Bible. Der Heliand, trans. Karl Simrock (Leipzig: Insel
Verlag, 1959; Project Gutenberg, 2005), http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/buch/der-heliand-4496/56.
19 Casper David Friedrich, Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, 1818, Hamburger Kunsthalle; Casper David
Friedrich, Monk by the Sea, 1809, Nationalgalerie Berlin; Casper David Friedrich, Abbey in the Oak Forest, 1809,
Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin.
20 Nash, “European Image of America,” 2.
7. 6
believing that his stories and descriptions were true. Finally, May’s storyline provided a theater
for German nationalism in which Germans could relate to May’s characters and revel in their
nation’s implicitly inherent greatness.
Karl May and his characters had already become household names by the time of his
death, and their fame has carried to the present day.21 After achieving fame “almost over night
[sic]” in the 1870s and 80s, May switched publishers in 1891.22 He then produced his collected
works, which made his new publisher, Fehsenfeld, and himself a fortune, selling more than
400,000 copies of the thirty-three book collection by 1896.23 He was Germany’s most successful
author at the turn-of-the-century.24 May’s influence endured through two world wars and the
division and reunification of Germany. According to Der Spiegel, more than 200 million copies
of his books have been printed, making him one of Germany’s most read authors ever.25 German
Hans-Wilhelm Kelling, who grew up during the Nazi period, read May as child in the 1940s and
commented that the reading of Karl May was essentially a universal experience for German
youth: “[May] was the hero for all of us, because of the heroic persons . . . We identified with
[May’s characters]. He also painted the picture of the American Indian, which is the noble
savage.”26 Though Kelling lived several decades after May wrote, May’s idealized portrayal of
Amerika and the Wild West was so real to him that he was disappointed after immigrating to the
21 In the Frankfurt Newspaper, Karl May’s name appeared regularly throughout the 1890s, especially
around Christmas time, because his books were coveted Christmas presents. No other publisher sold more books
than his. Jürgen Seul, Karl May im Urteil der “Frankfurter Zeitung“(Hamburg: Hansa Verlag, 2001), 17.
22 22 Feilitzsch, “Karl May: The ‘West’as seen in Germany,” 176.
23 Feilitzsch, “Karl May: The ‘West’ as seen in Germany,” 176.
24 Ibid.
25 Jan Fleischhauer, “Germany's Best-Loved Cowboy: The Fantastical World of Cult Novelist Karl May”
Der Spiegel no. 13 (2012).
26 Hans-Wilhelm Kelling, interview by author, Provo, Utah, March 11, 2015.
8. 7
United States when he was confronted with the real American West, because reality contradicted
his May-influenced preconceived notions.27
May’s descriptions of America included just enough well-researched facts to make them
believable. In fact, there are moments in May’s beloved novel sequence Winnetou 1-3 when the
scrawny Saxon author pulls off genuinely realistic depictions of American landscapes and
cultures. This certainly required a great deal of research on May’s part. In Winnetou III, for
example, May includes a rich, detailed description of Yellowstone:
In the territory of Wyoming near the source of the Yellowstone, in the midst of the wild,
fairy-tale beauty of the Rocky Mountains, lies the national park of the United States, a
natural preserve of 8,670 square kilometers. . . . [There] the unquenched depth of the
interior surges and boils, steams and simmers even today. The thin crust of the earth
forms bubbles, boiling hot sulphur vapors hiss and spurt, and with a noise that resembles
the roar of cannons, huge geysers splash their seething masses of water into the trembling
air.28
May’s occasional accurate, textbook-like descriptions based upon careful research lulled his
audiences into believing that all of his in his depictions were accurate. These exotic facts about
Yellowstone must have sounded more outlandish than many of May’s purely invented
descriptions, but they were also confirmable and surely strengthened May’s claims of holistic
veracity.
With the exceptions of descriptions of select native rituals that are central to the plot and
the rare, detailed descriptions like that of Yellowstone, May’s Amerika is rich in variety but poor
in depth. May favors geographical name dropping to description: “You should have tried to get
to the Salt River or the John Days River from here. Both of them flow into the Snake River
which you would then have followed upstream. To your left you would have had the Snake
27 Ibid.
28 May, Winnetou, 573.
9. 8
River Range and the entire Teton Range, more than fifty miles long.”29 Notice the lack of detail
beyond descriptions of proximity and size, descriptions readily available on a map. Describing
his initial foray in the West while working as a railroad surveyor, Old Shatterhand says, “The
railroad was to go from St. Louis through Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and on
to California and the Pacific Coast. . . . The section I . . . had been assigned to, lay between the
sources of the Red River and the Canadian River.”30 Such descriptions characterize and are
commonplace in May’s novels. May includes names of cities, rivers, and regions with very little
description aside from their names. Some of the places thus described include Ogden, Fort Scott,
the Kansas and Nebraska Rivers, Sioux Territory, Front Street in St. Louis, the Saskatchewan
River, Llano Estacado, the Salt River, the Rocky Mountains, the Wind River Range, the Green
River, the North and South Platte Rivers, Denver, the “city of the Mormons,” Cheyenne,
Yellowstone Lake, and the Snake River.31 With limited access to information, May seemed to
have utilized all of the available information at his fingertips. Though May’s name dropping
adds little to the story, it does make it appear as if May knows what he is talking about. The
inclusion of the names without description coupled with the occasional in-depth description of
places implies that May, through the use of his character Old Shatterhand, could describe the
named locales if he wanted to. May’s careful use of both fallacious and factual information
would come directly into play as he attempted to create a myth surrounding his identity as Old
Shatterhand.
There are sections in May’s novels, however, where he fabricates his own Amerika rather
than describing the real United States. After the villainous white chief Parranoh, the greatest
29 May, Winnetou, 612.
30 May, Winnetou, 20-21.
31 May, Winnetou, 420, 421, 423, 448, 574-575, 578, 612, and 613.
10. 9
enemy of Winnetou and Old Firehand, is captured, Old Shatterhand feels uneasy about putting
the murderer to death. Winnetou says, “My brother is cautious like someone about to step into a
river full of crocodiles.”32 It is hard to imagine an Apache chief from New Mexico
metaphorically alluding to a species that is anything but native to the deserts of the Southwest.
This brief slip up on May’s part illustrates two important points: May does not really know what
he is talking about, and he wants to make America appear exotic and foreign.
May further fabricated a realistic aura in his novels by utilizing first-person narration and
going to extreme efforts to convince his fans that he had not only visited the West but had
experienced the events in the novels as his protagonist Old Shatterhand. The novels have a
distinctive biographical ring to them, describing the reason why Old Shatterhand crossed the
Atlantic, May writes, “The limited opportunities at home, the desire to increase my knowledge,
and an innate urge for action had made me cross the ocean and come to the U.S.”33 Up to this
point, within the first chapter, the only name that the reader has encountered is Karl May on the
book cover.34 In fact, the narrator is not named until the fiftieth page when he is given a
nickname.35 May’s biographical voice suggests that the author is also the narrator. The line
between the author and his protagonist Old Shatterhand is also blurred in the preface of
Winnetou in which Old Shatterhand/May, mourning the demise of the noble savage who has
been robbed of the majestic “herds of mustang. . . . [and the] buffalo which populated the prairie
in millions” writes, “I can only lament, but change nothing. . . I came to know the Indians over
the course of a number of years, and one of them still lives brightly and magnificently in my
32 May, Winnetou, 498; Winnetou’s hatred of Parranoh is thus described: “Just as the parched grass of the
prairie thirsts for the dew of the night, Winnetou thirsts for revenge on Parranoh, the white chief.” May, Winnetou,
445.
33 May, Winnetou, 4. Emphasis added.
34 Karl May, Winnetou: erster Band (Bamberg: Karl-May-Verlag, 1951), 50.
35 May, Winnetou: erster Band, 50.
11. 10
heart. He, the best, the most loyal and most devoted of all my friends, was a true representative
of his race.”36 The preface is dated “Radebeul, near Dresden, 1892”: Karl May’s hometown.37
By the mid-1890s, implicit association with Old Shatterhand seemed to not be enough for
the then-wealthy author. May began to expressly claim to be Old Shatterhand. He purchased
exotic mementos from the West and had himself photographed in western garb to support his
claims, a brilliant publicity stunt that resulted in increased press exposure.38 Such claims entered
May’s personal correspondence as early as 1894 when he used the amount of detail in his novels
to argue that his research was simply too extensive to have been conducted in a study.39 In the
October 1896 edition of the magazine Deutscher Hausschatz the author stated, “I am really Old
Shatterhand . . . and have experienced all of [the things in my novels] and much more.”40
In order to verify his claims, May collected a wide variety of artifacts which supposedly
stemmed from Old Shatterhand’s adventures in the West and Ben Kahara’s time in the Middle
East. When sceptics questioned the truth of May’s tales, he was quick to offer his artifacts and
“scars” as evidence.41 Among the most interesting items that May collected are his novels’
famous rifles: the Henrystutzen (Henry carbine), the Bärentöter (bear killer) and Winnetou’s
Silberbüchse (silver rifle). The Silberbüchse is particularly interesting, because the rifle was
supposed to be buried with its owner in the Tetons. In order to justify its presence in Radebeul,
May was forced to build the disinterment of Winnetou’s grave into the plot of the third volume
of Old Surehand. May, who at this point was definitively Old Shatterhand, penned that he had
36 May, Winnetou, xiii-xiv.
37 Ibid, xiv.
38 Hans-Dieter Steinmetz, Karl May In Der Hohenstein-Erfstthaler Lokalpress 1899-1912:Eine
Dokumentation (Hohensten-Ernstthal:Karl-May-Haus, 2001), 8.
39 Christian Heermann, Der Mann, der Old Shatterhand war (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1988), 240.
40 May, Karl. “Freuden und Leiden eines Vielgelesenen,” Deutscher Hausschatz: in Wort und Bild, October 1896, 1,
quoted in Christian Heermann, Der Mann, der Old Shatterhand war (Berlin: Verlag der Nation, 1988), 240.
41 Heermann, Der Mann,der Old Shatterhand war,241.
12. 11
come across a group of Native Americans desecrating the grave and had decided to take the
weapon away in order to prevent any further attempts to rob from and disturb his dead blood
brother. It was a convenient excuse for having the famous chief’s rifle adorned with silver
hanging next to his desk.42
The truly remarkable part of May’s lie was that people, perhaps influenced by May’s
narrative voice and the well-researched tidbits in his novels, actually believed it. The famous
author toured through Germany on several city tours in the 1890s and was greeted like a rock
star by crowds to whom he fed stories from his “Abenteuerleben” (adventure life).43 Following
an appearance made by May in Munich in July of 1897, a reporter for the Bayerischer Kurier
und Münchner Fremdenblatt wrote, “It was, for me and probably everyone who met with Dr.
May during these days, a great joy, and it will remain a lasting memory to have seen the man
face to face who has traveled the whole world and understands more than 1,200 languages and
dialects: the man who is the last representative of the romanticism of the Wild West.”44 This is
no juvenile connoisseur of cowboy dime novels; this is an adult professional, being duped into
believing that the scrawny Karl May is known throughout the Wild West for his deadly punch.
The myth of reality that May tried to create caught hold for a time, but was ultimately too
outlandish to endure. By mid-1899 May’s fairytales had become too much for the German public
to believe. The author attracted the critical attentional of the Frankfurter Zeitung (Frankfurt
Newspaper) journalist Feder Mamroth who began his successful condemnation of the Old
42 Heermann, Der Mann,der Old Shatterhand war,248.
43 Seul, Karl May im Urteil der “Frankfurter Zeitung,” 57.
44 Steinmetz, Karl May In Der Hohenstein-Erfstthaler Lokalpress 1899-1912,8. “Mir aber, und wohl
Allen, die in diesen Tagen mit Dr. May zusammentrafen, war es eine große Freude und wird es eine bleibende
Erinnerung sein, den Mann, der die ganze Welt bereist hat, der über 1.200 Sprachen und Dialekte versteht,den
letzen Vertreter der Rommantik des wilden Westens von Angesicht zu Angescicht gehen zu haben.” Translated by
the author.
13. 12
Shatterhand legend while May was visiting the Middle East for the first time.45 In a last ditch
effort May’s sister produced a postcard from Egypt as evidence of May’s presence there under
Old Shatterhand’s pseudonym Ben Kahara, but by this time the game was over.46 The myth of
reality had been cracked, but May’s popularity would live on.47
Just as May’s claimed escapades in the West had engaged the press, his novels’ positive
portrayal of Germans attracted droves of German readers. May domesticated America’s Wild
West for Germans, making it comprehensible to them. His Amerika was simple and provided a
stage for the aggrandizement of Germans and newly unified Germany. May allowed Germans to
intellectually imperialize the unspoiled lands of the Wild West. It was intellectual imperialism at
its finest.
The simplicity of May’s storyline attracted young, malleable readers as well as adult
audiences and allowed the values and insecurities of newly-unified Germany to easily bleed
through.48 May’s Winnetou revolves around four main groups: the noble savages, influenced by
paternalistic Germans; the saintly German transplants; the corrupting Yankees (non-German
Americans); and the bad Indians. The simplistic moral character of May’s West reveals May’s
lack of firsthand experience and focused in the novels’ reflections of late 19th-century Germany;
the novels leave no room for questioning whether May was a fan of Germans and German
culture.
45 Seul, Karl May im Urteil der “Frankfurter Zeitung,” 74-75.
46 Steinmetz, Karl May In Der Hohenstein-Erfstthaler Lokalpress 1899-1912,137. Article from
Hohenstein-Ernstthaler Anzeiger, August 29, 1899. Oertliches und Sächsisches (Local and Saxon).
47 Seul, Karl May im Urteil der “Frankfurter Zeitung,”50.
48 A work of literature is certainly influenced by the contemporary cultural climate, and,if well read, in turn
influences the same society which initially contributed to its formation. Rick Duerden, “The New Historicism,” in
The Critical Experience: Literary Reading,Writing, and Criticism, ed. David Cowles (Dubuque, Iowa:
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1994), 237; May classified his works in two broad categories:
Jugenderzählungen (youth stories)and Reiseerzählungen (travelnarratives). In reality, both categories were set in
exotic locations and often dealt with the same characters and were consequently collectively viewed by the public
and critics as youth literature. Seul, Karl May im Urteil der “Frankfurter Zeitung,” 20-21.
14. 13
The Western frontier provided the ideal stage for Germans to encounter the 19th-century
equivalent of their fantasized, strong, Teutonic past of noble savagery, the Indians. German
identity and history are bound to the concept of barbarity.49 The German language echoes this
reality; the words used to describe ancient, primitive Germanic cultures, Sippen and Stämme
(clans and tribes), are used to describe “savage,” Native American societies. May’s novels
appealed to Germans because they could relate to or identify with May’s characters, including
the “good” Indians.50 They looked at May’s noble savages and saw themselves and their
ancestral roots.51 May made the connection between European heritage and native cultures
incredibly easy for readers through the portrayal of his “good” Indian characters. Though
Winnetou is chock-full of Native Americans, the detailed description of individual characters
through which the reader receives a portrayal of Native American identity is rather limited. The
namesake of the novel, Winnetou, and his sister and father form the basis for May’s description
of noble savages. Other minor members of the “good” Apache tribe provide only brief
opportunities to discuss Indian rituals and generalities: use of the words “howgh” and “ugh,”
medicine bags, torture customs, and languages. May’s description of Winnetou’s sister overtly
connects her with Europe. He makes note of her idealized European facial features when he
writes, “The soft, warm, and full cheeks came together in a chin whose dimples would have
suggested playfulness in a European woman. . . . The delicate flare of her nostrils seemed to
point to Greek rather than Indian descent.”52 These Native Americans’ proto-Europeans
49 Reusch notes,“The etymological origin of ‘savage’ derived from the attributes bestowed upon the
Germanic tribesman by the Roman colonizers: silvaticus—ofthe woods—defining a violent barbarian who dwelt
outside the perimeters of Roman civilization.” Reusch, “Germans as Noble Savages and Castaways,” 96.
50 Kelling, interview.
51 German glorification of the past helped Germans identify with America’s, and relatedly May’s, “savage”
Indians: “The idealized noble savage and his/her natural habitat and lifestyle as objects of desire, resulting from
dissatisfaction with the social and environmental conditions of the period, can be traced through underlying
nostalgic references to an ancient Germanic past.” Reusch, “Germans as Noble Savages and Castaways,” 92.
52 Karl May, Winnetou, trans. Michael Shaw (New York: The Seabury Press, 1977), 202.
15. 14
appearance is what ultimately attracts May’s German protagonist and alter ego, Old Shatterhand,
to Winnetou and his noble family. Upon first meeting Winnetou and his father, Old Shatterhand
is impressed by the “truly noble” physical poise of the Apache chief and his son.”53
Winnetou is brave, strong, and loyal, yet he is also educated and refined. Winnetou
mirrors the complex duality in which Germans saw themselves as inheritors of a noble tradition
of brutish strength and the refined product of education and culture. German values and
characteristics distinguish the “good” from the “bad” Indians. A ninth-century Germanized
version of the Christ story written to convert the Saxons, Der Heliand, illustrates a longstanding
Germanic glorification of brutish strength. In Der Heliand the warrior-disciple Peter, upon
Christ’s arrest, reaches for his sword and maims, cutting through ear, cheek and bones, one of his
Lord’s assailants.54 Physical, even brutish, prowess and cultural sensitivity and refined taste are
examples of Germanic values imposed on and glorified through the portrayal of Native
Americans like Winnetou. For example, the same Winnetou who “pounced on [his sworn enemy
Paranoh], pressed his right knee against his chest, and detached the scalp with three incisions” is
also deeply moved by the singing of the Ave Maria.55 After Old Shatterhand and his team of
surveyors become involved in a confusing Indian conflict, they are mistakenly identified as
enemies of the noble Apaches and taken prisoner by them. After regaining consciousness as a
prisoner Old Shatterhand encounters Winnetou on a more personal level. He is surprised to see
the noble Apache dressed in delicate linen and holding a copy of Longfellow’s Hiawatha.56
53 May, Winntou, 71.
54 “With Lightning speed [Peter] pulled his sword from his side and smote the foremost enemy with full
strength.. . . [The enemy’s] head was raw, and his bloodied cheek and ear burst into his bones and his blood spewed
from the wound.” Translated from modern German translation by author. Der Heliand, chapter56.
55 May, Winnetou, 456, 613.
56 May, Winnetou, 99.
16. 15
Winnetou’s European education—he was taught by a German-American—allow Old
Shatterhand and May’s German audience to identify with him.
In keeping with the 19th-century trope of the “vanishing Indian,” May portrayed the tragic
demise of the noble, savage Indian cultures, which harbored the raw Teutonic values of the
Germanic past.57 The key to perpetuating these ideals, according to May’s books, seems to be
found, not in Indian culture, but in modern Germanic culture’s combination of physical strength
and refinement. Winnetou suggests that refined by his noble past, the modern German could
overcome any obstacle and tame any wilderness. Old Shatterhand, the ideal German,
incorporates elements from his Germanic past of noble savagery, while also embracing education
and culture. The values that define noble Winnetou and his family also define Old Shatterhand;
however, Old Shatterhand is able to rise to even greater nobility and strength through humility,
education, and Christianity.58 Old Shatterhand is eager to learn from his Apache blood brother
and describes himself “with pleasure” as a “disciple” of the Apache prince, and his teachable
humility allows him to master the secrets of the Apache and then combine them with his
European education and Christian values.59 Only upon his acceptance of Christianity does
Winnetou become equal to Old Shatterhand whose Christian faith, learning and humility have
long since allowed him to surpass his Indian teacher and friend.60 Shortly before his death and
his overt confession of belief in Christianity, Winnetou attributes his refinement through Old
Shatterhand’s teaching and clearly references his conversion when he says, “My brother knows .
. . that the Apache thirsted for the water of knowledge. You gave it to him, and he drank it in full
57 Brian W. Dippie, The Vanishing American: White Attitudes & U.S. Indian Policy (Lawrence: University
Press of Kansas,1982).
58 May, Winnetou, 263-265.
59 May, Winnetou, 285.
60 May, Winnetou, 647.
17. 16
draughts. Winnetou learned much, more than any [other Indian].”61 The “water of knowledge,”
in the context of Winnetou’s confession of Christ, seems to allude to the biblical “water of life”
and Winnetou’s acceptance of this water, allows him, more than any other Apache, to surpass the
limits of paganism as an Indian and embrace something greater, something divine.
In May’s West a modern German could encounter and learn from his noble past, tapping
previously unattained potential, and apply the merits of his modern training thus becoming the
ideal German and Mensch (human). Young Germany, with its untapped potential, is perfectly
personified in May’s near-demigod German protagonist, Old Shatterhand. After heading west
with a railroad surveying crew, the other more experienced Western men label him a
“Greenhorn” and mock his lack of experience and bookish claims to expertise.62 Germany, like
Old Shatterhand, was young and inexperienced, yet both would quickly surpass the feats of
others and establish their own legitimacy. Within months of arriving in America and entering the
American West, the “Greenhorn” has not only learned to survive in the rugged West, he has
become the epitome of a man of the West. Like Old Shatterhand, Germany’s rise to power was
rapid; Wilhelm I was proclaimed Kaiser (emperor) in the Parisian palace of the Sun King,
following young Germany’s surprising and humiliating 1871 defeat of one of Europe’s
powerhouses, France.63 In Winnetou I Old Shatterhand is able to achieve fame and overcome
seemingly impossible obstacles by humbly learning from the more experienced men of the West
like Sam Hawkins and ultimately from Winnetou.64 Prior to being taught the secrets of the
61 May, Winnetou, 640.
62 May, Winnetou, 45-46.
63 Until defeat in the Franco-Prussian War the French army had been seen as the premier military force in
Europe. Douglas Fermer, preface to Three German Invasions of France the Summers Campaigns of 1830,1914,
1940 (South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword Military, 2013), x.
64 Old Shatterhand develops a strong friendship with a German-American on the surveying team named
Sam Hawkins. Sam is the figure that labels Old Shatterhand as a “Greenhorn” in spite of Old Shatterhand’s obvious
competence. Old Shatterhand,in spite of annoyance at being called a Greenhorn, allows Sam to teach him things
18. 17
wilderness from Winnetou, Old Shatterhand is able to overcome significant trials by applying his
book learning of the West and using his innate strength. He is even able to defeat the animal
embodiment of America, the Grizzly; however, it is not until after he combines his innate
strength and intellect with the secrets of the Apaches that Old Shatterhand is able to become
superior to all others in the West, Indian and White.65
Upon returning to St. Louis after killing a buffalo with a gun, capturing a mustang, killing
a Grizzly with a knife, becoming the blood-brother of an Indian chief, and becoming the mortal
enemy of another, Old Shatterhand visits the German-American family he had previously
worked for as a tutor. The bashful German protagonist is modest and unassuming. He is
surprised to learn that his nickname, Old Shatterhand, has gained fame throughout St. Louis; his
former, German-American employer is not:
I don’t see how you could have expected anything else. What a fellow you are! In a few
months, you experience more than others in many years. You weather all dangers. You
are a greenhorn, and yet a match for the most seasoned men. You overturn all those cruel
laws of the West because you always respect the human being in your adversary. And
then you gape with amazement when everybody talks about you.66
The passage drips with nationalistic overtones. Germany’s rise to power in Europe was meteoric;
however, it was not really shocking. Germany had the resources and industrial wealth to
challenge any other European power. It was simply a matter of tapping existing potential, which
it did.
like the reasons for killing smaller buffalo for meat and how mustang herds follow in the path of buffalos. May,
Winnetou, 43-45.
65 May, Winnetou, 414; In Coleman’s book Here Lies Hugh Glass he discusses the powerful image of the
Grizzly Bear in 19th-century America as the embodiment of American identity. Grizzlies are not found in Germany
and, like Buffaloes and wild herds of Mustangs,were certainly fascinating and foreign to European audiences.Old
Shatterhand’s defeat of all three unique symbols of the American wilderness is telling in light of Coleman’s work.
Old Shatterhand symbolically conquers America as he conquers its fittingly powerful symbol, the white bear, the
Grizzly. Jon T. Coleman, Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2012).
66 May, Winnetou, 414.
19. 18
As if Old Shatterhand’s, and by association Germany’s and Germans,’ ability to surpass
the expectations of those around him is not adequately emphasized through his aforementioned
adventures as a man of the West in Winnetou I, when Old Shatterhand is in actuality an
unexperienced Greenhorn, May’s protagonist repeatedly conceals his true identity as a famous
man of the West and undergoes the same process of surpassing the expectations of those around
him after already achieving fame and status in the West. This occurs in Winnetou II when he
conceals his identity from Old Death, a famous German-American man of the West, and in
Winnetou III when he meets Sharpeye, who surprisingly is not a German. These “surpassing
expectations” stories, found in all three installments of the Winnetou series, illustrate the belief
that Germans, and by association Germany, are capable of overcoming prejudices against lack of
experience and appearances. Looks aren’t everything in the West, and for meteoric Germany,
they certainly weren’t either.
Just as Karl May’s implicit association with Old Shatterhand through the use of the first-
person narration had not been enough for the author by the mid-1890s, the author abandoned his
implied glorification of Germany through the use of admirable German characters as previously
discussed in the first two installments of Winnetou in exchange for unconcealed connection
between German identity and Old Shatterhand in Winnetou III. The third installment begins with
yet another revealed identity episode, this time with an implicitly American character named
Sharpeye who is condescendingly biased against Germans. While on a train ride going West,
Sharpeye becomes intrigued and amused by his well-dressed riding companion—Old
Shatterhand who identifies himself as a writer—after he learns of his intent to go to the “most
dangerous part of the Rocky Mountains,” the Tetons, “by himself.”67 After learning that Old
67 May, Winnetou, 579.
20. 19
Shatterhand does not even have a horse and intends to use his lasso to capture a wild Mustang,
Sharpeye “could no longer contain himself and burst out laughing.” Derisively, he calls Old
Shatterhand a “Sunday hunter” and says, “Everything about you is so nice and clean. Just look at
a trapper and compare. Your riding boots are new and shiny. . . . Your hat cost at least twelve
dollars, and your knife and revolver probably never did anyone any harm.”68 Then May plays his
most nationalist card and has Sharpeye ask, “You aren’t German by any chance?”69 Sharpeye,
the only famous Western man who is not a German or German-American in the sequence, is
used to show an anti-German bias that foreigners harbor. He thinks Germans look “nice and
clean,” but are incapable of surviving in the big, bad world of the American West. Dismissing to
Old Shatterhand’s claim to have won a prize for shooting once, Sharpeye says, “Well, well. So
you shot at a wooden bird and got a prize for it. There’s the Germans for you. . . . Sir, I really
urge you, get back [to Germany] as quickly as you can so you won’t come to harm.”70 Sharpeye
is even skeptical about Old Shatterhand’s German identity saying that he is “supposed to be
German.” The story overtly associates the low expectations of people when they meet Old
Shatterhand with non-Germans’ negative preconceptions of Germans. Naturally, Old
Shatterhand rapidly invalidates Sharpeye’s biases within the next couple of pages when he
accurately reads complicated tracks and shoots a bird from so high in the sky that “not even Old
Firehand could.”71
Old Shatterhand’s “surpassing expectations” experience with Sharpeye provides a
powerful symbolic representation of the young, capable, unified German nation-state, or of
Germans as a broad national category, deflating biased external opinions about their
68 May, Winnetou, 580.
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid.
71 Ibid. 583-588.
21. 20
inexperience and maladroitness. Yet, the surpassing expectations episodes are not limited to Old
Shatterhand’s contact with non-Germans. This fact allows Old Shatterhand’s identity to function
as a dual symbol. On the one hand Old Shatterhand seems to obviously represent the entire
German Volk (people) or nation. Yet in other scenarios, Old Shatterhand appears to represent an
identity within an inter-German landscape as he interacts with other German characters like Old
Firehand. Old Shatterhand and Old Firehand’s relationship parallels and seems to represent the
gradual awakening of an interregional German national identity.
In spite of nationalists’ faith in an ancient, primordial united national identity, the
historical heritage and precedence in Germany was disunity, not harmony. The only inkling of
unity was achieved by the ancient Holy Roman Empire: an empire defined by strong regionalism
and weak centralism.72 Even at the apex of the Carolingian Empire, the people living “east of the
Rhine had no inkling that they were Germans; . . . A single ‘German people’ did not exist.”73
Though the empire remained a nominal force for centuries, cultural unification was not a
trademark of the empire nor the German “nation.”
The German nationalist movement resulted from, or perhaps in, a widespread, albeit
gradual, paradigm shift. Germans—who had for centuries identified themselves in regional terms
that emphasized regional differences and downplayed pan-German similarities—began to open
their eyes to a cultural unity that linked them to the other people in German-speaking Europe.74
They discovered, in short, the German nation.
72 Hagen Schulze, Germany: A New History, trans. Deborah Lucas Schneider (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press,1998), 21.
73 Schulze, Germany: A New History, 15.
74 Schulze, Germany: A New History, 15; Louis L. Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism
(Bloomington/London: Indiana University Press, 1978), 38-40.
22. 21
Old Shatterhand is well aware of Old Firehand, the famous man of the West. Both
German immigrants are lionized around campfires in the West. The characters are remarkably
similar. Both are beloved friends of Winnetou. Both are Germans who have made their way to
the Wild West. Both are skilled men who have mastered the secrets of the frontier. Finally, both
don’t recognize these similarities and obvious reasons for friendship when they meet. They do
not see each other as they really are.
Old Shatterhand and Old Firehand meet in the dark of the night while each is spying on a
group of Ponca Indians. Old Shatterhand is only able to see Old Firehand’s glowing eyes before
a silent (they both understand the need to not be heard by the nearby Poncas) scuffle ensues.
Both fight admirably and Old Shatterhand, the undefeatable titan, comments that he has never
faced a more formidable foe. Neither is severely injured, and the fight ends in a draw when Old
Shatterhand takes advantage of an opportune moment when the two combatants briefly push
each other apart to crouch down and conceal himself, using the cover of the pitch-black night.
Unable to see one another, both silently retreat away from the site of the scuffle.
There are no two characters in the novels so well-suited for friendship, with the possible
exception of Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. Yet, their relationship begins with a blind scuffle.
The parallels to inter-German conflicts saturate this scenario.
In the minds of German nationalists, there were no groups more suited for friendship than
the disparate German states.75 German nationalism reached a highpoint following the Napoleonic
Wars which provided German-speakers with an enemy against whom they could contrast their
75 There was no legitimate historical precedence for German unification. In fact, “It is more correct to refer
to the 19th century ‘Germanies’ rather than German.” The nationalist movement dramatically changed that as
German nationalism became the “cement” of the states’unification. Germans, recognizing cultural similarities as
well as common interests,“came to regard their special culture and way of life as equal to or superior to those of
other peoples.” Snyder, Rootsof German Nationalism,39-40, 55-56.
23. 22
culture and recognize regional unity. This is evident in an 1813 poem by Ernst Moritz Arndt
called “Des Deutschen Vaterland” (The German Fatherland). In the poem Arndt asks, “Where is
the German fatherland?” He then asks if it is Prussia or Saxony, Bavaria or Tyrol. The answer is
the same every time “O nein! nein! nein!” The poem continues,
So tell me now at last the land!—
As far’s the Germans accent rings
And hymns to God in heaven sings,—
That is the land,—
There, brother, is thy fatherland!
There is the German’s fatherland,
Where oaths attest the grasped hand,—
Where truth beams from the sparkling eyes,
And in the heart love warmly lies;—
That is the land,—
There, brother, is thy fatherland!
That is the German’s fatherland,
Where wrath pursues the foreign band,—
Where every Frank is held a foe,
And Germans all as brothers glow;—
That is the Land,—
All Germany’s thy fatherland!76
In the nationalists’ minds an elemental identity unified the German nation. The regionalism that
defined their current state in the early 19th century was not the natural state of Germany, because
values like virtue, love, German, and enmity with the French united them as one Volk (nation).
The Napoleonic wars opened Germans’ eyes to their inherent unity and friendship. Romantic
German nationalists reveled in what they saw as a past glory and unity that had simply been
forgotten or lost. The Grimm brothers’ work focused on linguistic and cultural unity and
76 Ernst Moritz Arndt, “The German Fatherland,” in The Poets and Poetry of Europe, with introductions
and biographical notes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 185), 322-33.
24. 23
facilitated the discovery of the German Volk tied to the soil and culture of the fatherland.77
Germans had simply been blinded to their inherent national unity. Nationalism opened their eyes.
On the morning following their blind scuffle, Old Shatterhand and Old Firehand meet
within the safe confines of a union fort (Germany was unified on military terms under the
leadership of Bismarck). Old Shatterhand notices his knife in Old Firehand’s belt and puts two
and two together, realizing that Firehand was the one who attacked him on the previous night.
The men quickly forgive one another and unite. Winnetou, who is just outside the fort, is soon
brought into the mix as well.78 The unstoppable dream team of the West is then created to fight
back the encroaching Poncas.
The parallels between the unification of the German sharpshooters and the unification of
the German nation states seems too obvious to have not been noticed by German readers. At a
bare minimum the audience must have felt pride in the power occasioned by the unification of
German characters in the book.
There is no doubt that May’s Winnetou had a large impact on Germans’ perceptions of
America and its West. Though it is difficult to measure the impact of a text on a society,
Winnetou’s enduring popularity testifies that the book sequence struck, and continues to strike, a
chord with German audiences. The publication of May’s novels with their nationalist undertone
in the decades following the German unification is arguably one reason for their enduring
popularity; they spoke to and emanated from Germans’ newly achieved national consciousness.
In many ways, Karl May was an unlikely purveyor of information about the American
West in Germany. After all, the closest he ever got to the real Wild West was when he traveled
77 Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism,36-39.
78 Karl May, Winnetou: zweiter Band (Wien: Tosa Verlag, 1963), 274-275.
25. 24
to Niagara Falls following the publication of his novels in 1908.79 In spite of May’s lack of
personal experience, he became one of Germany’s foremost promoters of the romantic Wild
West, Native Americans, and the German nation. May and his beloved characters have become
icons of the German virtues of strength and loyalty. May’s books are still read and several annual
play productions, put on in the great outdoors, just like the performance of the Ave Maria that
Winnetou requested shortly before his death, still attract enthusiastic May fans.80 Whether or not
May’s noble savage is really buried in the Tetons with, or perhaps now without, his
Silberbüchse, the idea of Winnetou is alive and well in Germany, and as long as May’s
characters continue to attract German fans, Germany will continue to feel a deep connection to
the American West.
Why America? Perhaps the simplest answer to the palpable physical and intellectual pull
that America exercised on Germany during the 19th century was that America was not
contemporary Europe. The American West provided rich, to the point of foreign, agricultural
opportunities, as seen in the “America Letters.” The American West also provided, at least in an
imaginary sense, a glimpse into Germany’s past. The noble savage was something like a
Germanic tribesman, and the Wild West allowed Germans to discover their past in an
unadulterated way.81 Karl May, didn’t create the German fascination with the West; he simply
described, created, and convinced Germans of his own version of the West. His Amerika
79 Heermann, Der Mann,der Old Shatterhand war,333-336
80 Winnetou is deeply moved at the outdoorsinging of Ave Maria by a group of German settlers near the
Tetons.He is so moved that he agrees to share his guarded secrets about valuable minerals in that region with the
settlers if they will agree to sing the song for him again. They agree to do so; however, when they begin to sing the
song the second time, they are no longer outside.Winnetou quickly stops themand says,“It doesn’t sound good
inside the house.Winnetou wants to hear it from the mountain.” The settlers agree: “He is right . . . this song must
be sung underthe open sky. Let’s go outside.” The scenario is what ultimately allows Winnetou to embrace
Christianity. His conversion comes is deeply tied with and occurs within nature: the sanctuary of Native Americans
and the Germanic tribes. Tellingly, the Germans agree that some things are too sacred for civilization. Nature is the
Native American and German temple. May, Winnetou, 613.
81 It is fitting that the terms for Germanic social structures,clans and tribes, mirror those for Native
American societies identically.
26. 25
resonated so deeply with Germans that it would come to define the West, and by association
Germany’s “America,” for generations to come.
27. 26
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